FILM REVIEW

FILM REVIEW; Taking A Bite Out Of Crime

Published: October 4, 2002

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Dolarhyde is the victim of child abuse, and the ancestral home he inhabits looks as if it were subleased from Norman Bates of ''Psycho.'' (The violent, emasculating grandmother heard in his flashbacks must have been friends with Norman's mother.)

It's tough to accept Mr. Fiennes, with his angelic, hurting eyes and firm raised chin, as an outcast. And the flamboyant soap opera between Dolarhyde and a blind co-worker, played by Emily Watson, is jaw-dropping. Just when you think the picture can't go any farther over the top, it finds a whole new peak to tumble over.

Because the picture so studiously apes ''Silence,'' it's missing the gruesome tingle that informed the first film version of ''Dragon,'' the 1986 ''Manhunter.''

Both pictures share a cinematographer, Dante Spinotti, who forgoes the high-gloss, primary-color resolution of ''Manhunter'' for gothic shadowy tones in this case. Michael Mann, the director of ''Manhunter,'' has a legitimate affinity for pulp. He didn't try to elevate a B-picture into something it couldn't live up to.

The real issue for many is the Hannibal Lecter taste test; Brian Cox's brisk, bored Lecter in ''Manhunter'' was all firing synapses, throwing away every single line. Mr. Mann had the advantage of the book being a lesser-known commodity, and he adjusted his sights. The Hannibal of ''Manhunter'' was scarier because what he had done was never revealed.

Mr. Ratner has a lot more to live up to. One of the more amusing things he does is cast Frankie Faison, the only actor to appear in all four Lecter movies, as a hospital worker. And the climax has a coldblooded panache that shows what the director might have done if he had been given more room to exert his own style.

But mostly the new movie adaptation of ''Red Dragon'' poses a philosophical question not found in Mr. Harris's novels: Can something really gory put you to sleep? ''Red Dragon'' says yes.

Directed by Brett Ratner; written by Ted Tally, based on the book by Thomas Harris; director of photography, Dante Spinotti; edited by Mark Helfrich; music by Danny Elfman; production designer, Kristi Zea; produced by Dino De Laurentiis and Martha De Laurentiis; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 126 minutes. This film is rated R.